Only to marry her.
What?
He looked suddenly apologetic, and thereby resembled more the man she remembered from last year. “I have not made a marriage proposal since I was seventeen,” he said, “more than thirty years ago. But even with that fact as an excuse, I realize that this was a very lame effort. I have had ample time since leaving London to compose a pretty speech but have failed to do so. I have not even brought flowers or gone down upon bended knee. What a sad figure of a suitor you will think me, Miss Debbins.”
“You want me to marry you?” She indicated herself with a hand over her heart, as though the room was full of single ladies and she was unsure that he meant her rather than any of the others.
He clasped his hands behind his back and sighed aloud. “You know about the wedding in London less than a week ago, of course,” he said. “You doubtless heard about the Survivors’ Club when we were all staying here at Middlebury Park last year. You would know about us from Flavian even if from no one else. We are very close friends. During the past two years all six of the others have married. After Imogen’s wedding was over last week and the last of my guests left my London home a few days ago, it occurred to me that I had been left behind. It occurred to me that . . . I was perhaps just a touch lonely.”
Dora felt half robbed of breath. One did not expect a nobleman with his . . . presence either to experience such a lack in his life or to admit to it if he did. It was the last thing she would have expected him to say.
“And it struck me,” he continued when she did not fill the short silence that succeeded his words, “that I really do not want to be lonely. Yet I cannot expect my friends, no matter how dear they are, to fill the void or to satisfy the hunger that is at the very core of my being. I would not even wish them to try. I could, however, hope for such a thing, even perhaps expect it, from a wife.”
“But—” She pressed her hand harder to her bosom. “But why me?”
“I thought that perhaps you are a little lonely too, Miss Debbins,” he said, half smiling.
She wished suddenly that she were sitting. Was this the impression she gave the world—that she was a lonely, pathetic spinster, still holding out the faint hope that some gentleman would be desperate enough to take her? Desperate, however, was not a word that could possibly describe the Duke of Stanbrook. He must be some years older than she, but he was still eminently eligible in every imaginable way. He could have almost any single woman—or girl—he chose. His words, though, had wounded her, humiliated her.
“I live a solitary life, Your Grace,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “By choice. Solitude and loneliness are not necessarily interchangeable words.”
“I have offended you, Miss Debbins,” he said. “I do apologize. I am being unusually gauche. May I accept your offer of a seat after all? I need to explain myself far more lucidly. I did not, I assure you, search my mind for the loneliest lady of my acquaintance, pick on you, and dash off to propose marriage to you. Forgive me if I have given that impression.”
“It would be too absurd to believe that you need choose thus anyway,” she said, indicating the chair opposite hers again and sinking gratefully back into her own. She was not sure how much longer her knees would have held her upright.
“It occurred to me after I had given the matter some thought,” he said as he seated himself, “that what I most need and want is a companion and friend, someone with whom I can be comfortable, someone who would be content to be always at my side. Someone . . . all my own. And someone to share my bed. Forgive me—but it ought to be mentioned. I wished—wish—for more than a platonic relationship.”
Dora was looking at her hands. Her cheeks were hot again—well, of course they were. But she lifted her eyes to his now, and the reality of what was happening rushed at her. He was the Duke of Stanbrook. She had been flattered, made breathless, been ridiculously pleased by his courteous attentions last year. One afternoon he and Flavian had escorted Agnes and her all the way home from Middlebury, and he had drawn her arm through his and conversed amicably with her and set her quite at her ease while they outpaced the other two. She had relished every moment of that walk and had relived it over and over again in the days following, and, indeed, ever since. Now he was here in her sitting room. He had come to propose marriage to her.
“But why me?” she asked again. Her voice sounded shockingly normal.
“When I thought all these things,” he said, “they came with the image of you. I cannot explain why. I do not believe I know why. But it was of you I thought. Only you. If you refuse me, I believe I will remain as I am.”
He was looking directly into her face, and now she saw not just an austere aristocrat. She saw a man. It was a stupid thought, one she would not have been able to explain if she had been called upon to do so. She felt breathless again and a bit shivery and was glad she was sitting down.
And someone to share my bed.
“I am thirty-nine years old, Your Grace,” she told him.
“Ah,” he said and half smiled again. “I have the effrontery, then, to be asking you to marry an older man. I am nine years your senior.”
“I would be unable to bear you children,” she said. “At least—” She had not gone through the change of life yet, but it must surely happen soon.
“I have a nephew,” he said, “a worthy young man of whom I am dearly fond. He is married and already father to a daughter. Sons will no doubt follow. I am not interested in having children in my nursery again, Miss Debbins.”